the last time (put my name at the top of your list)
by gustin puckerman
Summary: Barry apologised to Caitlin for his "Ronnie" comment, and things become a little bit... intimate. ―Barry/Caitlin. Post 1x08. Mentions of Ronnie. Oneshot.


**Set after the events in 1x08 of The Flash. I don't know how you guys are not intensifyingly shipping them even harder, but I totally am. (And it's soooo not healthy oh gawd help me.) Also, I'm very disappointed on the fact that they didn't put any Snowbarry apologising scene for Barry's absolutely horrid "Ronnie" comment, so I take it as cue to do it for the show. Or, for my muse, mostly. **

**Musically inspired by Taylor Swift's The Last Time feat. Gary Lightbody.**

...

**the last time (put my name at the top of your list)**.

Nobody was there.

That much was clear, or at least, that's what Barry could tell anyway. He knew he wasn't supposed to be here - at S.T.A.R. Lab, late at this hour, and with his body still wired down from the unsettling rage that had consumed him hours prior - but there was something needed to be done. And it needed to be done as immediately as possible.

Dr. Wells wasn't around - which didn't surprise him even a bit. That man tend to disappear at a certain time of the day, but since nobody's really been questioning him, Barry wasn't to question either. Cisco was live messaging him about _Game Theft Auto __5_ that he's currently playing, so he simply assumed the younger man was already lazing around back at his house. Which made the situation even more favourable.

No distraction. No interruption.

He needed to do this clean.

Apologising.

"_Caitlin, I'm not Ronnie. You've gotta stop treating me like I am!_" His own voice boomed back against his ears, and Barry felt something collapsed inside of his chest. Shame. Regret. Guilt. Everything was eating him up. He knew it was wrong. Though of course, in the heat of the moment, it didn't _feel_ wrong. And he knew that somewhat everybody had excused him, or him lashing out all over the place, due to the fact he was "infected", but that wasn't going to cut it.

He said what he shouldn't ever said - and he's going to make it right.

Just as he expected, he found her right where he'd wanted her to be. At the centre of the lab, where every Flash and meta human secrets are being discussed daily. She's just shutting down the computers, her back to him as she was, picking up her coat from the table.

She hadn't realised he was here, he made note. Well, how could she? Usually when he'd made his appearances, he'd _flashed_ himself right in. (See what he did there?) But he figured he'd walk this time, especially since he could still feel his thigh fixing itself up where Oliver had punctured an arrow through.

"Caitlin."

She yelped. Well, no not exactly. She wasn't really what he'd called the "yelping" type. But there was a gasp, definitely, coming from her as she was startled, and her brown locks flipped over her shoulder when she drastically turned around. "Barry!" She exclaimed, then let out this big sigh of relief whilst clasping a hand right across where her heart lied. "_God_, you startled me."

It took her another second to render her fingers through her hair and tugged her shirt, but she was half-glaring when he'd began noticing the expression on her face again. "Don't you ever do that, again." She said through gritted teeth, huffing straightly afterwards. "What are you doing here, anyway? Aren't you supposed to... well, aren't you going to have your secret rooftop meetings with a certain beautiful Miss West?"

He must've frowned - significantly - because the next thing she knows Caitlin was fixating this worried look that she always wore whenever he got himself _way_ too injured. Which was, well, something of a frequent event.

"Oh no, what's wrong?" She stepped forward, one gentle hand coming up as though to caress his face, "Barry, what happened? Did you get hurt? Did― _Iris?_"

"No, no." He quickly interjected, carefully grasping on her extended wrist and clasping it with his two hands. Right now, as he realised it, he could feel how thin she felt under his hands-and Barry realised that, _yeah_, despite everything, he _was_ a man. He's bigger, taller. And just _seeing_ their hands like this, upon one another, it made him realise that well. That Caitlin was a woman.

A beautiful, smart, incredible young woman.

Of course he'd known this all along. Of course he did. But, he'd never see her as a woman. He meant, not in the way that he'd seen her much less, or otherwise. But she'd been more of a colleague, a _friend_, than she was her gender first. And Barry, realising this, the fact that she's a _fairly_ attractive and female and single well.

It made him... jumpy. Kind of.

But he didn't let go of her hand. No, not yet, he figured. Because she's cold, he realised. Colder near the fingertips, and he found himself favouring in holding her hand. Just like this. Just for a moment longer. "Iris... is fine." He didn't want to talk about Iris, Barry noted again, clearing his head and forcing his eyes to gaze into her brown ones.

He came here to apologise.

And apologise, he will.

"I... I don't wanna talk about Iris. I wanna... earlier, today, I... I said something... I said something I shouldn't―" Just as he said it, Caitlin retreated back her hand naturally, shaking her head and rolling her eyes backward. Barry didn't acknowledge the lump in his throat when she stepped a small space behind, or when it felt as though somebody ripped a bandaid from his skin without remorse when she pulled her hand away. He just blinked back at her.

"Barry, I understand. You were―" She reasoned, glancing the other way. "You weren't thinking straight. I know you wouldn't mean any of that." Her voice died at the end of the sentences when she tried to look him in the eyes, and Barry felt as though Oliver had stabbed him with another three arrows down his back, and five on his front. God, he felt _sick_.

"Caitlin, I was―"

"Barry," she stopped him, taking another step behind. "It's all over. What matter is, you're okay. You're safe and―"

"No, of course it's not okay." He couldn't believe her. How could, after all this time, she would be willing to let him get away with this? What he said was _horrible_. Absolutely, just, the most absolute stupid thing he's ever done. He needed-he can't live with himself knowing that he'd willing himself to commit such an act, and not _do_ anything about it.

What's wrong was wrong, and he'll face up to it.

"What I said that wasn't right. I wasn't maybe I was infected, but... that _doesn't_ mean I should be excused of- of my slip-up." He swallowed, "I'm sorry, Caitlin. I'm sorry I said all of those things. I'm sorry... that I bring up Ronnie. I know that he's―" He looked at her, suddenly realising, helped by the light illuminating from the hallway, that there were tears pooling in her eyes, but not yet fallen. "I shouldn't, and I'm sorry."

"It's alright," she shrugged, grinning up at him and Barry felt something in his heart twisted some more. _That's not a real smile_. He knew by then how Caitlin Snow would've looked like smiling and that wasn't it. "You didn't mean it, right?"

But they both knew better.

He can't say that he _didn't_ mean it he must've, or at least, to _some_ extent, or else he wouldn't say it, would he? Sure, he felt like Ronnie or at least, imagined how it felt to be treated so carefully and with such fragility like... like he's a _child_, or something. Like she's going to lose him any seconds-just like she'd lost Ronnie. And she'd never fail to compare him to the man himself sometimes. But...

Caitlin sat back into a swivel chair, both elbows by her knees and half of her face buried in one palm and Barry had never felt more worse than to see her like this. She looked so... _dejected_.

"You... didn't mean it right?" She whispered brokenly and Barry wished he could run himself to the edge of the world and escaped the image of her tearful eyes meeting him, _pleading_ him to say yes. To _lie_.

"Caitlin..."

"I never..." Her words ran off when she clasped both hands against her face, ducking her head lower and forcing all of her brown strands of hair to fall like waterfall by her side. Barry did the one thing he thought he could he dropped himself to both of his knees, right in front of her.

"Caitlin, look at me."

She didn't, not at first.

"Hey, Caitlin, please..." He licked his lips, and gently placed his fingers to align with the skin up to her wrist, and swallowed. "Please look at me. _Please_."

Slowly, he noticed her eyelashes came into view, and he bravely swapped one side of her hair back, didn't linger at the feel of the soft strands between his fingers-but he let his hand stayed there for a couple of moments longer, just so it could give him some sort of an angle as though he's cupping her jaw.

"I'm really, _really_ sorry."

"I know," she whispered back, nodding her head and brushing her finger down the part of her cheek where he noticed was wet. Silence lapsed again, but Barry was determined not to let any awkwardness seeped through and continued to gently caressed her hair behind as she gathered herself up. Or at least, that's how he remembered what Joe used to do whenever Iris threw a rare, dramatic tantrum.

"I was..." she started, "―I never meant to treat you... to treat you like him. Like Ronnie." She swallowed, sniffling. "I didn't―I wasn't aware. I just. All I could think of whenever you did something _stupid―_" He smiled a little at that, and watched her eyes brightened up, if only by a bit. "―was that you wouldn't _die_ because of it."

"Caitlin―" He began, trying to say that he understood, because weren't that what they all wanted by the end of the day? For everybody to be save? But the words couldn't come out, not when she's putting a hand up to stop him.

"No, I'm not finished." There's the air of fiesty side of her that's coming back, and Barry's heart leaped to his throat, glad, but this was far from over, he knew. He should let her say her piece. "What I was trying to say was: I care about you. Yes, I don't want you to die. Not like Ronnie. Yes, I made comparisons between you and him. But when I said I care about you I was really saying I cared about Barry Allen. And I never put anyone else behind that name. Just you."

Barry felt something seizing up across his veins with that sentences, but he couldn't pin point _what_.

"You're not Ronnie, Barry. I know that." She told, "And when you were lying on the bed, broken and bleeding, I wasn't stitching Ronnie back up. I'm fixing _you_. I see you. I care about _you_."

"Caitlin, I'm so, _so_ sorry."

She smiled then, sadly-but it's genuine, he knew. It's _real_. "I know."

"And I―when I said that―I meant, when I was feeling like... like I was treated as though I'm Ronnie. I just. That's not it, Caitlin. I was just... sometimes... the way you care... yeah, it could be overwhelming and well, yes, _annoying_. I'll admit to that. But I couldn't imagine living a world where you _don't_ care about me, Caitlin. I can't. I won't. And... quite honestly, I want you to _continue_ to care for me. Just the way you did before. Because..." He looked down, and realised he's got her hands in his, Barry squeezed it, in reassurances, in comfort.

In a way to tell her that he's here and they're okay, and he's not going anywhere.

And he said: "Because if you won't, then who else would I got?"

Caitlin squeezed his hands back.

**End Note: Since I've copy pasted this straightly from tumblr, I've realised they've been a few mistakes due to the fact some of the format tumblr has supported wasn't what supported. So, I've edited it and let me know if I've got any grammar/spelling mistakes left. :)**

**This is also available on tumblr (a rebloggable version) and AO3**.


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